The parts that bothered me about this old chestnut of hers was (a) the appearance of the horse and (but) the idea of another girl being present.
Judge Esme Anne Whitney is terrified of horses, will not get within yards of one of them. She’d once dragged me to a horse show to which her friend the governor had invited her and whispered to me, “God, don’t people ever get sick of seeing these creatures emptying their bowels.”
Judge Whitney on a horse? I have my doubts.
As for another girl going along to keep Esme Anne and Mr. Coward company, impossible.
No way would Esme Anne Whitney share such a moment. She would want herself to be the only one with bragging rights to this particular tale.
“Dear Noel,” Judge Whitney said this afternoon, seated on the veranda of her mansion, the maid, a masochist named Nell O’Bannion, having just delivered up another bottle of brandy, “dear, dear Noel.” She took a dramatic puff of her Galouise-Bette Davis had once taken acting lessons from the judge-“dear, dear Noel.”
Then she said, not being great at changing subjects with any grace: “I want his face rubbed in it this time, McCain.”
“You want dear, dear Noel Coward’s face rubbed in it?”
“My Lord, McCain, pay attention will you?
Just because you’re short doesn’t mean you have to be stupid, too. I want Cliffie’s face rubbed in it.”
“Ah. Cliffie.”
She had her rubber band ready to go. I wondered if Nell O’Bannion had brought her the rubber bands along with her first bottle of brandy. She set down her snifter and her Galouise long enough to load up her forefinger and thumb and fire at me.
She was damned good at her little game. She did a double fake-pretended to be firing from the left and then suddenly shifting to the right and, as I moved my head to the left, surprised me by moving back to the left again. The rubber band hung off my nose momentarily and then dropped to the table. She had a dead aim.
A squirrel sitting on the edge of the patio watched me with great disdain. His expression seemed to question why I didn’t have more self-respect than to sit with a half-fried, jodhpur-wearing, horse-loathing Eastern lady of vast wealth and even vaster disdain for common folk like me. I should’ve told the squirrel that it was none of his damned business. Instead I explained (don’t knock telepathy until you try it) that I needed the money. I made a pittance from my law practice. I earned a modest living by working as Judge Whitney’s investigator.
I watched the squirrel romp off in the direction of the surrounding forest, diving in and out of the frothy colorful waves of crisp autumn leaves. He had an enviable life.
She inhaled half her Galouise and then took a long drink from her snifter. There was a cold beauty in the fine-boned lines of her face.
She’d had innumerable husbands and lovers but always ended up alone. In my way, I liked her in a complicated and melancholy sort of fashion, at least in those moments when my hands weren’t aching to wrap themselves around her elegant throat.
She said, “Jack Coyle.”
“All right, I’ll play along. Jack
Coyle.”
“A social worker who was involved in a case I presided over a while back told me about a rumor she’d heard.”
“Involving Jack Coyle.”
“My, you’re quick today.”
“I thought we might be talking about dear, dear Noel again.”
“I’m handing you some important information and you sit here drinking my brandy making fun of me. You really are a dunce, McCain.”
“Jack Coyle. Tell me.”
More wine. More Galouise.
“This is unconfirmed, of course.”
“My favorite kind of rumor.”
“This particular caseworker had worked as a high school counselor at one time. And one of the students she saw was Sara Griffin.”
She’d hooked me. School counselor.
Sara Griffin. Jack Coyle. Whatever it was, it was bound to be juicy.
“Sara was going through a very difficult time.”
“This was before or after her folks put her in that asylum?”
“Just before. Anyway, the counselor told me that several times Sara referred to this “older man” she was seeing. She never used a name. But one evening the counselor was out at the state park with her kids-they were having a picnic-and down by the boathouse she saw Jack Coyle and Sara Griffin. They weren’t doing anything untoward, you understand. They were standing there talking. But then they got into some kind of argument and Sara ran away in tears. She said that Jack Coyle stalked off after Sara. She didn’t know what happened after that. She had to get back to her kids.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
She smiled. “I couldn’t wait to tell you this, McCain. I wish I could get a picture of your face at this moment. You look absolutely shocked.”
“I am absolutely shocked.” I decided to give her the pleasure of telling me something I already knew. “But it’s just rumor.”
She smiled again. “Cliffie’s in way over his head this time, McCain.” She said this with the relish of deep hatred.
“Yes, he is.”
“He’s going all over town saying that the case is closed and that David Egan was the killer.
But we’re going to prove otherwise, aren’t we, McCain?”
“We sure are.”
“This doesn’t mean I suspect Jack
Coyle.”
“No, of course not.”
“But,” she smirked, “I’d sure love to have a picture of his face when you ask him about poor Sara Griffin. Now take care of this for me will you, McCain?”
“I’ll do my best,” I said, standing up.
The cold beauty smiled again but without any hint of merriment. “That may not be enough on a matter like this, McCain. I’d suggest you aim a little higher than your best.”
Walking to my car, I came up with at least eighteen great cracks to make about middle-aged society women who wore jodhpurs but were terrified of horses. I couldn’t, of course, say any of them out loud.
It was a high school sort of date. Back then I would’ve made sure that my ducktail was combed flat, that I was smiling so much my lip muscles hurt, that I appeared manly enough to please the father and trustworthy enough to please the mother.
If one of them asked me what I planned to do with my life, I generally said that I hoped to become a doctor and work on a cure for cancer; and if they inquired of my extracurricular activities, it being obvious that athletics did not number among them, I told them that I spent most of my time stocking shelves for the nuns down at the Pantry for the Poor they ran. If they were Protestant parents, I said that I stocked shelves at the Martin Luther Poverty Center.
In other words, it was all Pat Boone bullshit.
Mrs. Dennehy, her husband being understandably absent because of his death, said, “So how is your law practice going, Sam?”
We were in the living room. Brett Maverick was cheating somebody at poker on the Tv screen and Fred, their black Lab, was stinking up my hand with his tongue. Linda was “just about ready.” Or so she’d called out from some secret place outside the small but comfortably furnished living room.
Mrs. Dennehy was of a different generation of Irish Catholics than Emma and Amy
Kelly so she didn’t have quite as many framed paintings of Jesus on the walls. And Jesus wasn’t quite so pretty as in the older paintings.
The more modern ones showed a Jesus who didn’t look like a pushover for just any sob story you decided to lay on him. There were strands of palm from Palm Sunday, to be sure, placed behind the two framed paintings of the Virgin on the wall but not nearly the number my Mom had in the bedroom she shared with my dad all these years. The Pope was nowhere to be found.
“My law practice is going just fine,” I said, thinking of Jamie or Jammie, depending on your taste and level of literacy. “I have a new secretary and business has really picked up.”